Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
She nods and goes to get a small stool to sit on while she paints my nails, or actually paints the skin around my nails, with my nails. One finger has polish all the way to the knuckles.
“Don’t move your hands or you’ll smudge it,” she tells me to put up my feet on the table.
Luckily I had taken off my socks when we started this adventure.
“You have big feet,” she says, painting my big toe. “Aunt Kay says big feet mean big—”
“Rachel,” Lauren shouts from the entrance of the living room.
“Mamma, you’re home. Look, I’m painting Noah’s nails. He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s a social butterfly, so I put it on his feet.”
She walks in, taking in the paint job. “Oh, isn’t that nice, you are doing a wonderful job.” She kisses her cheek while Rachel misses my whole toenail altogether and paints the top of my foot. Lauren comes in eating and talking to Gabe as I wait for my nails to dry. When Kaleigh finally comes down, I see that she is wearing her pjs and her hair is piled on top of her head.
“I guess you’re staying here?” I ask her as she sits next to me.
“Aren’t you sick of me yet?” She tilts her head to the side.
“Yet? Why, are you sick of me?” I mimic her move with my head and the question.
“Not even a little.”
“Good, so leave your car here and I’ll drive you back tomorrow. I have to be in court at nine. So it will work out,” I say, leaning in. “Plus, you owe me a surprise and I want to show you my toy.”
“Oh, yeah, is your toy a big toy?” She leans into me.
“Can you guys not talk about toys on my couch, please?” Lauren shouts from the kitchen.
“I didn’t see any toys,” Rachel says from somewhere else.
“Okay, let’s go,” I say, getting up and saying bye to everyone.
When I walk out of court the next day I drive straight to Austin’s to see how the bastard is doing.
“Hey there, stranger.” I go to his couch, unbuttoning my jacket and sitting down. I look at Austin. “Well, at least you won’t try to bang your new PA, right?” I laugh, brushing my hands into my hair.
“That really isn’t your color.” He points to my hand.
“Rachel painted my nails yesterday.” I inspect my nails. “You should see what she did to my feet.”
He throws his pen down and sits up straighter. “You saw Rachel yesterday?”
“Well, we had to babysit Rachel and Gabe so Lauren could bring her car in to get the radio fixed,” I say and then notice a change in his facial expression.
“What?” he yells.
“A CD of Frozen was jammed in her player and was stuck on repeat, so it played it all the time. You know this.” Surely he remembers he kept bitching about it for a month.
“I know what you mean. What I don’t understand is why you were babysitting.”
“She needed help.” I open my hands.
“Why didn’t she ask me?”
“I don’t know, maybe because you hightailed it right out of there the minute family shit started happening on Sunday night?” I stand up, now remembering the story Kaleigh told me in bed last night.
“Fuck off!” he yells back at me. Austin sits up in his chair a little straighter. “She was busy, so I left.”
I glare at him now. “You left or you took off, it’s the same thing.”
“Is that what she said?” He waits for an answer.
“She didn’t say anything. I just found it weird that she would ask us and not you. Kaleigh said to drop it, so I figured you didn’t want to.”
“I wasn’t asked. I didn’t even know.”
He gets up, grabbing his jacket, ready to run out of the office, when I grab his arm. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to tell her that I’m not scared of her kids.”
“Think about what you’re doing. You are planning to barge into her workplace to profess this to her. Dude.” I shake my head and grab my phone to call Kaleigh. “Babycakes, are you home?” I smile and nod.
“Yup,” she answers. “Why? Are you going to come and feed me your toy for lunch?”
I look at Austin to make sure he didn’t hear.
“Okay. Austin needs to come over and do something. Can you go to my place? Pack a bag, or better yet, just bring everything with you.”
“Funny, if you’re asking me to move in this isn’t exactly the way to do it. I’ll leave the door open for him and make arrangements with our parents for the kids.”
I smile and then hang up. “Okay, Kaleigh is leaving the door open for you. Go woo your girl.”
“Woo?” he asks me.
How he has even gotten laid is beyond me.
“A meal, rose petals, champagne, lingerie, vibrators, cuffs. You know, romance.”